The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-04-18
ORDERS BOUND BY 0ATHS.
TALMAGE ON THE MORAL EFFECT
OF SECRET SOCIETIES.
A Tendency to "Blab" Declared Char

aCteriStiC OF SolOmonS T1me-The
Great Preacher Acknowledges the
Great Good Accomplished by Many of
the Institutions Home Life Should
Not be Neglected, However, for tho
Lodge Room.
BROOKLYN, April 17.-The Rev. r. De-
Witt Talmage, d. D., announced to his CON
gregation to-day that as the Brooklyn
Tabernacle has been uncomfortably crowded
for many years the trustees have purchased
the adjoining ground, ON which a great
church, prayer and Sunday school room will
be built, which on SabbathS can be opened
into the main auditorium thus giving room
for at least a thousand more hearers at
services. Six thousand people are crowded
into the present building; 1850 Of these in
pews, and about 500 seated in aisles and
standing The improvement will add great
ly to this capacity.
The subject Of DR.. Talmage's sermon to-
day was: "What is the Moral Effect Of
Free Masonry, Odd Fellowship, Knights of
Labor, Greek Alphabet and Other Socie-
ties" The text was from Proverbs, XIV, Q:
Discover not q secret to anothern DR..
Talmage said:
1t appears that in Solomon's time as in all
subsequent periods of the world, there Were
people too much disposed to tell all they
knew. 1t was blab, blab, blab physicians
revealing the case of their patients, lawyers
exposing the private affairs of their clients,
neighbors advertising the faults of the next
door resident; pretended friends betraying
condolences. One-half of the trouble of
every community copies from the fact
that so many people have not
capacity to keep tbs3r mouths shut
When hear something disparaging OF YOU
my first duty is not 60 tell you. But if |
tell you what somebody has said against
you, and then go out and tell everybody else
what told you, and they go out and tell
others what / told them that | told
you, and we all go out, some to hunt up the
originator Of the story and others to hunt it
down we shall get the whole community
talking about what you did do and what you
did not do, and there will be as many scalps
taken as though band of Modocs had swept
upon helpless village. We have two ears
but only one tongue, a physiological sugges-
tiOn that we ought to hear good deal more
than we tell Let us join conspiracy that
we will tell each other all the good and
nothing of the i'll, and then there will
not be such awful need of sermons on Solo
mons words: Discover not a secret to
another
Solomon had very large domestic circle.
In his earlier days he had very confused no
tions about monogamy and polygamy, and
his multitudinous associates in the matri-
monial state kept him too well informed as
to what was going on in Jerusalem They
gathered up all the privacies of the city and
poured them into his cad and his family be-
came Sorosis or female debating society of
seven hundred, discussing day after day all
the difficulties between husbands and wives
between employers and employees, between
rulers and subjects, until Solomon, in my
text, deplores volubility about affairs that
do not belong to us and extols the virtue of
SecretivenesS
By the power of a secret divulged fami-
lies, churches, neighborhoods, nations fly
apart. By thd power of a secret kept great
charities, SOC Ialities, reformatory move
ments and Oh I1stian enterprises may be adj
vanced. Me h are regarious-cattle in
herds, fish in chools, birds in flocks, men in
social circles. You may by the discharge
of a gun scatttr flock of quails, or by the
plunge of thk anchor send apart the deni-
zens of the sea, but they will gather them
selves together again. If you, by some new
power, could break the associations in which
men now stand, they would again adhere.
God meant it so. He has gathered all the
flowers and shrubs into associations. You
may plant one forget-me-not or hearts
ease alone, away off upon the hillside, but
it will soon hunt up some other forget-me-
not or hearts-ease. Plants love company
You will find them talking to each other in
the dew. A galaxy of stars is only mu-
tual life insurance company. You some
times see a man with no outbranch-
ings of sympathy. His nature is
cold and hard like a ships
mast ice-glazed, which the most agile sailor
could never climb. Others have a thousand
roots and thousand branches. Innumer-
able tendrils climb their hearts and blossom
all the way up, and the fowls of heaven
sing in the branches. In consequence of this
tendency we find men coming together in
tribes, in communities, in churches, in so
cieties. Some gather together TO cultivate
the arts, some to plan for the welfare Of the
state, some TO discuss religious themes, some
to kindle their mirth some to advance their
craft. SO every active community is
divided into associations of artists, of mer-
chants, of bookbinders, of carpenters, of
masons, of plaSterers, of shipwTights, Of
plumbers. Do you cry ont against itl Then
you cry ont against tendency divinely i'm
planted. Your TRADES would accomplish no
more than If you should preach TO busy
anthill or beehive a long sermon against
secret societies.
Here we find the oft-discussed question
whether associations that Go their work with
closed doors and admit their members by
passwords, and greet each other with u
secret grip, are right or wrong. | answer
that it depends entirely on the ma
ture of the object for which they meet Is
it TO pass the hours irrrevelry, wassail, bias
pheny and obscene talk, or 10 plot trouble
to the state, or to debauch the innocent,
then | say with an emphasis that no men
can mistake, Mo- But is the object the de-
fense of the rights of any class against op-
preston. the improvement Of the mind, the
enlargement Of the heart, the advancement
of art, the defense of the government, the
eXtirpation Of crime or the kindlng of n
pure-hcarted sociality, then | say with just
as much emphasis, Yes
There Is no need that we who plan for the
conquest OF right over wrong should pub
lish TO all the world our intentions. The
General of an army never sends To the OPP
posing troops information of the coming at
tack. Shall we who have enlisted in the
cause of God and humanity expose our
plans 10 the enemy No. we will in secret
plot the ruin Of all the enterprises of Satan
and his cohorts When they expect us by
day we will fall upon them by night. While
they are strengthening their left wing we
VIII double up their right BY IA plan OF
battle formed In secret cOnclavc We will
come suddenly upon them crying; "The
sword Of the Lord and Of Gideon Secresy
of plot and execution are wrong only when
the object and euds are nefarious. Every
family Is a secret society every business